Friday round-up
on Oct 21, 2011 at 10:30 am
Yesterday’s coverage of the Court continues the focus on recent developments in the challenge to the Affordable Care Act. At the Wall Street Journal’s In Charge Blog, Angus Loten and Jess Bravin report on the decision by the National Federation of Independent Business to file its brief early, as well as the group’s hope that the Court will hear the case in March, rather than April. Healthwatch, The Hill’s health care blog, summarizes the federal government’s arguments, made in response to the petitions filed by the group of states and the NFIB, about whether the Act’s individual mandate can be struck down without affecting other provisions of the law.
At the college admissions blog of the New York Times, The Choice, Adam Liptak discusses the possible implications of a decision by the Court in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin on college admissions; he concludes that even if the Court rules against racial preferences, private universities are still unlikely to abandon affirmative action.
Cornel West’s recent arrest on the steps of the Court has generated renewed interest in the constitutionality of the federal law banning protests at the Court. Arin Greenwood of the Huffington Post reports that a group of protesters arrested in 2008 plans to file a cert. petition asking the Court to invalidate the law. Joe Palazzo at the WSJ Law Blog interviews the group’s lawyer, Mark Goldstone, and Constitutional Law Prof Blog also has coverage.
Finally, at the Volokh Conspiracy, Orin Kerr weighs in on the first question presented in United States v. Jones: whether the use of the GPS tracking device constitutes a search or seizure under the Fourth Amendment. Kerr concludes that whatever the Court ultimately decides, the “fundamental distinction between inside and outside surveillance” is “too deeply rooted in text, history, and precedent for the Court to depart from it lightly.”
Briefly:
- At the Huffington Post, Mike Sacks reports on efforts by Congressional Democrats to respond to the Court’s recent decisions on arbitration clauses.
- The National Review Online marks Justice Thomas’s twentieth year on the Court with a symposium. Contributors include Steven Calabresi and former clerk John Yoo.
